Antitrust ruling says Microsoft didn’t kill WordPerfect—Novell did

Judge dismisses Novell suit, the company still intends to pursue an appeal.

After all these years, Microsoft and Novell are still fighting over what went wrong for WordPerfect in the months after the release of Windows 95. The delayed release of WordPerfect for the then-latest version of Windows helped Microsoft's operating system and its own Office suite win the war for market share. Novell has been crying "antitrust" ever since.

But a ruling today brings Microsoft one big step closer to a final victory, with a judge throwing out the case with a decision that blamed Novell for the WordPerfect delays. The current case was filed in 2004 after a Novell/Microsoft settlement ended all but one of the issues of contention. The Supreme Court got involved in 2008, allowing the case to proceed, but an eight-week trial ended in a hung jury in December 2011.

After that, Microsoft asked for a Judgment as a Matter of Law (JMOL) in an attempt to close the case. US District Court Judge J. Frederick Motz in Utah granted that Microsoft motion today (Scribd link).

The ruling deconstructs Novell's claim that Microsoft's withdrawal of support for namespace extension APIs prevented WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, and Perfect Office from being released until May 1996 (three months after Novell sold WordPerfect to Corel). But monopolists, such as Microsoft, aren't required to cooperate with competitors, Motz wrote. Moreover, Novell didn't complain to Microsoft about the lack of API support at the time, and decided to write its own customized file open dialog rather than using the common file open dialog Microsoft provided instead of APIs. Internally, Novell didn't even hold any high-level meetings about the problem. The task of writing proper code for Windows 95 was given to a middle manager, who delegated responsibility to two developers.

Even though the case centered around office software, Novell argued that Microsoft's actions prevented Novell from developing successful middleware that might have challenged the Windows monopoly over the operating system market.

But WordPerfect's market share (about 15 percent of the Windows-compatible word processing market prior to the release of Windows 95) was already low enough that even a successful launch isn't likely to have saved it, the judge wrote.

"In short, no reasonable jury could find, on the basis of the evidence presented at trial, that Microsoft’s withdrawal of support for the namespace extension APIs caused Novell’s failure to develop its applications within 90 days of the release of Windows 95," Motz wrote.

Novell bought the WordPerfect company in June 1994, but then sold it to Corel in March 1996 (while keeping some WordPerfect software for its GroupWise messaging and collaboration product).

In a statement released after the decision, Microsoft Deputy General Counsel David Howard said, “We’ve maintained throughout this case that Novell’s arguments lack merit, and we’re gratified with today’s ruling dismissing the last of Novell’s claims and putting this matter to rest.”

Novell (which is now owned by Attachmate after a 2011 acquisition) still has the right to appeal, and said it will do so. In a statement sent to Ars, Novell VP Jim Lundberg said, "While Novell is disappointed with Judge Frederick Motz’s ruling, Novell still believes in the strength of its claim and we do intend to pursue an appeal."